Waiting for Something, Waiting for Everything
by Andrew Velzian
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A lot of strong ones.
Description: It’s the waiting and hoping that drives you mad.
_____________________________________________________________________
All we had was a bottle of homemade peach schnapps. This was supposed to do us until the wages went in at midnight, 3 hours and 11 minutes away. One bottle of peach bloody schnapps and no cigarettes.
I took in her demure frame as she went to the open-plan kitchen and got some mugs. Slender erotic neck showing beneath the blonde bob, thin frame and arse tightly encased in skin-tight jeans. I considered fucking her again but was feeling a bit edgy as the beer wore off and not having had a cigarette for over an hour.
This bottle of schnapps was like a mist drifting over the Sahara, when what was really needed was a torrential fuckin downpour. This just would not do.
She smiled at me as she came back carrying a red chipped Nescafe mug and a tea stained china cup. Pouring the drinks I winked and raised a toast.
“To the midnight hour and all that the Social shall bringeth.”
“Amen to that.”
Lifting her cup she took a sip then scrunched her face.
“And something decent to drink.”
I gulped most of mine in a oner and acknowledged the toothache as it flared again. Feeling woozy with swollen gums and faint with hunger I paced around the flat, fresh paint and the smell of newly laid carpets were just a further irritant to my already aggravated senses. It was her free flat from the Housing Association so couldn’t really grumble, I just needed a cigarette to calm me down is all.
It’s a given that with limited drink one must consume rapidly in order to achieve the maximum effect. It is also common knowledge that the need for a cigarette increases in tandem with said increased intake of alcohol. Oh for the sake of one fucking cigarette.
“None anywhere nah?”
“Nope.” She shook her head from side to side, cheeks flushed.
I ran my finger through the ashtray, poking around the ripped up doubts and burnt filter tips but all trace of second-hand tobacco had been evacuated previously.
Then an idea came to me.
“When did you empty this before last?”
“No sure.”
She clocked on quick though. In one fluid movement she stood up straight from her crossed leg position.
“Bins are outside.”
“I’ll get them.”
I was on my feet giving her a kiss and across the living room in three strides.
I heard the rain pounding the door before the shock of the night hit me. On this small quiet estate perched along the shoreline it was the only sound to be heard.
To the right of the door the raindrops bounced off the targeted bin-liner. Soggy food fell out the bottom as I lifted it, a hungry cat on the hunt for some leftover takeaway or tattie peelings. Bastard.
Catching my eye in the rain-pierced darkness, I noticed four shining eyes in the bush at the end of the path. Two drenched kittens were attempting to take shelter from the worst of the storm. Her kittens. She had put them out to pasture so to speak. She had neither the money, will, nor inclination to look after them and had abandoned them now that they weren’t so cute. She was young and she was selfish, as cruel as she was cute. The kittens and I stared at each other for a moment or two and I wondered which of us, in the long run, were better off. I think they felt more sorrow for me as despite an open door to warmth, shelter and possibly food they moved not an inch. Sod it. I grabbed the bag and commenced operation find a fag.
I shook the rubbish bag over the sink to rid it of the rain and then began to dissect the contents on the kitchen floor. Food we didn’t remember eating had soaked its juices into the sparse collection of cigarette ends that had small chance of resurrection. We tidied the rubbish into another binliner and stared at the meagre findings.
“Should get two out of that eh?” I forced the optimism.
She had the grill already on to dry the sodden baccy.
Over the next fifteen minutes we used all the precision and guile of a surgeon cum gold panner to assemble possibly the worst two half dry roll ups ever to exist in this pissing world. The things you fucking do I tell you.
We struggled and we persisted to try and get a decent draw but it was an effort. It did succeed in taking our mind off the last of the schnapps and 17 minutes closer to giro ’o’clock.
We sat and waited out the last hour of the campaign. We didn’t talk much. We had nothing to say.
I was with her this last four days as it was kind of my fault she had got kicked out of where she was staying, ending up in emergency housing with not a friend to borrow money off.
Prior to our introduction she had been sleeping on some geek’s couch. With the right word here and a little attention there, it wasn’t long before he was smitten and insisted she bide at his and help herself to his cupboards and at times his wallet. He tried to ‘nice’ her into bed which is one of life’s great tragedies and a cruel joke to boot.
Having a post-break-up bender I met a friend of hers and asked if any of her pals were up for a bit of fun. She had pointed me her way. After 15 minutes of meeting up with her our mutual acquaintance had explained the situation, that’s all it took and seeing as she was as up for it as I was, there was only one outcome. There only ever is with girls like that, and only ever one way of going about it. Sad but true. No niceness involved. Needless to say the Geek was heartbroken and tearfully declared he could not have her in his house if she was with another.
“O.k.” she had replied. “Can I borrow a fiver?”
He gave her ten.
Since then I had stayed with her in her newly decorated kitten-less abode. These past few days it had all been about sex, drinking and passing out, an arrangement we both appreciated and benefitted from. This evening all three were in short supply and therefore so was any chance of conversation.
It was a long, cold and very fucking wet walk into town and the ATM. The High Street was deserted save for an un-drownable rat out window-shopping the dreary store fronts.
Our mission carried some risk and a lot of variables that could jeopardise our night’s future happiness and possible sanity.
1) Extract money.
2) Power walk (fuckin leg it) to nearest pub in hope that it was still open. Procure bottle of vodka, 8 cans of coke and forty Regal king-size.
3) Knock on back door Sheik kebab house for a cheap salad free kebab as they mopped and cleaned the kitchen.
We felt good and we felt relieved when the cashpoint came into view through the rain and impotent street lights, but we had to be quick. The stroke of midnight came from the ancient cathedral behind us and in went the card, feeling like an end to abstinence.
7329…Nothing.
7.3.2.9….Nothing.
7.3.2.9…!!
“Fuuuck!!”
“Cathedral might be wrong.” She gripped my arm.
“This cannot be happening.”
Glad of the rain trickling down my face to hide any unexpected tears, I punched the screen. Ten toothachy dry mouthed nicotine deprived minutes of trying and still fuck all.
“Might be half past.” She tried to console the empty feeling inside.
“Nothing open then,” I accused the screen.
It all just slipped away. I thought of laughing kittens. I thought of high blood pressure. I also thought of breaking into the off-license.
We trudged wearily up and down the main street trying every cash point. Nada. Nowt. Nuffink. It became an endurance test. It became pointless.
We got home at one in the morning. Wet, tired and emotionally drained. We stripped off and got in the shower. We were wiped out but still managed the odd sentence, even half smiles. Knowing there was nothing we could do till morning made things a little easier to bear in that odd, stoic sense. It’s the waiting and hoping that drives you mad. The dawning of futility is the only way to focus your mind enough to get on with things, to move forward.
I woke up at 3 ‘o’ clock with the worst fuckin toothache I have ever felt.
Swearwords: A lot of strong ones.
Description: It’s the waiting and hoping that drives you mad.
_____________________________________________________________________
All we had was a bottle of homemade peach schnapps. This was supposed to do us until the wages went in at midnight, 3 hours and 11 minutes away. One bottle of peach bloody schnapps and no cigarettes.
I took in her demure frame as she went to the open-plan kitchen and got some mugs. Slender erotic neck showing beneath the blonde bob, thin frame and arse tightly encased in skin-tight jeans. I considered fucking her again but was feeling a bit edgy as the beer wore off and not having had a cigarette for over an hour.
This bottle of schnapps was like a mist drifting over the Sahara, when what was really needed was a torrential fuckin downpour. This just would not do.
She smiled at me as she came back carrying a red chipped Nescafe mug and a tea stained china cup. Pouring the drinks I winked and raised a toast.
“To the midnight hour and all that the Social shall bringeth.”
“Amen to that.”
Lifting her cup she took a sip then scrunched her face.
“And something decent to drink.”
I gulped most of mine in a oner and acknowledged the toothache as it flared again. Feeling woozy with swollen gums and faint with hunger I paced around the flat, fresh paint and the smell of newly laid carpets were just a further irritant to my already aggravated senses. It was her free flat from the Housing Association so couldn’t really grumble, I just needed a cigarette to calm me down is all.
It’s a given that with limited drink one must consume rapidly in order to achieve the maximum effect. It is also common knowledge that the need for a cigarette increases in tandem with said increased intake of alcohol. Oh for the sake of one fucking cigarette.
“None anywhere nah?”
“Nope.” She shook her head from side to side, cheeks flushed.
I ran my finger through the ashtray, poking around the ripped up doubts and burnt filter tips but all trace of second-hand tobacco had been evacuated previously.
Then an idea came to me.
“When did you empty this before last?”
“No sure.”
She clocked on quick though. In one fluid movement she stood up straight from her crossed leg position.
“Bins are outside.”
“I’ll get them.”
I was on my feet giving her a kiss and across the living room in three strides.
I heard the rain pounding the door before the shock of the night hit me. On this small quiet estate perched along the shoreline it was the only sound to be heard.
To the right of the door the raindrops bounced off the targeted bin-liner. Soggy food fell out the bottom as I lifted it, a hungry cat on the hunt for some leftover takeaway or tattie peelings. Bastard.
Catching my eye in the rain-pierced darkness, I noticed four shining eyes in the bush at the end of the path. Two drenched kittens were attempting to take shelter from the worst of the storm. Her kittens. She had put them out to pasture so to speak. She had neither the money, will, nor inclination to look after them and had abandoned them now that they weren’t so cute. She was young and she was selfish, as cruel as she was cute. The kittens and I stared at each other for a moment or two and I wondered which of us, in the long run, were better off. I think they felt more sorrow for me as despite an open door to warmth, shelter and possibly food they moved not an inch. Sod it. I grabbed the bag and commenced operation find a fag.
I shook the rubbish bag over the sink to rid it of the rain and then began to dissect the contents on the kitchen floor. Food we didn’t remember eating had soaked its juices into the sparse collection of cigarette ends that had small chance of resurrection. We tidied the rubbish into another binliner and stared at the meagre findings.
“Should get two out of that eh?” I forced the optimism.
She had the grill already on to dry the sodden baccy.
Over the next fifteen minutes we used all the precision and guile of a surgeon cum gold panner to assemble possibly the worst two half dry roll ups ever to exist in this pissing world. The things you fucking do I tell you.
We struggled and we persisted to try and get a decent draw but it was an effort. It did succeed in taking our mind off the last of the schnapps and 17 minutes closer to giro ’o’clock.
We sat and waited out the last hour of the campaign. We didn’t talk much. We had nothing to say.
I was with her this last four days as it was kind of my fault she had got kicked out of where she was staying, ending up in emergency housing with not a friend to borrow money off.
Prior to our introduction she had been sleeping on some geek’s couch. With the right word here and a little attention there, it wasn’t long before he was smitten and insisted she bide at his and help herself to his cupboards and at times his wallet. He tried to ‘nice’ her into bed which is one of life’s great tragedies and a cruel joke to boot.
Having a post-break-up bender I met a friend of hers and asked if any of her pals were up for a bit of fun. She had pointed me her way. After 15 minutes of meeting up with her our mutual acquaintance had explained the situation, that’s all it took and seeing as she was as up for it as I was, there was only one outcome. There only ever is with girls like that, and only ever one way of going about it. Sad but true. No niceness involved. Needless to say the Geek was heartbroken and tearfully declared he could not have her in his house if she was with another.
“O.k.” she had replied. “Can I borrow a fiver?”
He gave her ten.
Since then I had stayed with her in her newly decorated kitten-less abode. These past few days it had all been about sex, drinking and passing out, an arrangement we both appreciated and benefitted from. This evening all three were in short supply and therefore so was any chance of conversation.
It was a long, cold and very fucking wet walk into town and the ATM. The High Street was deserted save for an un-drownable rat out window-shopping the dreary store fronts.
Our mission carried some risk and a lot of variables that could jeopardise our night’s future happiness and possible sanity.
1) Extract money.
2) Power walk (fuckin leg it) to nearest pub in hope that it was still open. Procure bottle of vodka, 8 cans of coke and forty Regal king-size.
3) Knock on back door Sheik kebab house for a cheap salad free kebab as they mopped and cleaned the kitchen.
We felt good and we felt relieved when the cashpoint came into view through the rain and impotent street lights, but we had to be quick. The stroke of midnight came from the ancient cathedral behind us and in went the card, feeling like an end to abstinence.
7329…Nothing.
7.3.2.9….Nothing.
7.3.2.9…!!
“Fuuuck!!”
“Cathedral might be wrong.” She gripped my arm.
“This cannot be happening.”
Glad of the rain trickling down my face to hide any unexpected tears, I punched the screen. Ten toothachy dry mouthed nicotine deprived minutes of trying and still fuck all.
“Might be half past.” She tried to console the empty feeling inside.
“Nothing open then,” I accused the screen.
It all just slipped away. I thought of laughing kittens. I thought of high blood pressure. I also thought of breaking into the off-license.
We trudged wearily up and down the main street trying every cash point. Nada. Nowt. Nuffink. It became an endurance test. It became pointless.
We got home at one in the morning. Wet, tired and emotionally drained. We stripped off and got in the shower. We were wiped out but still managed the odd sentence, even half smiles. Knowing there was nothing we could do till morning made things a little easier to bear in that odd, stoic sense. It’s the waiting and hoping that drives you mad. The dawning of futility is the only way to focus your mind enough to get on with things, to move forward.
I woke up at 3 ‘o’ clock with the worst fuckin toothache I have ever felt.
About the Author
Born in Dunfermline, raised on the Orkney Isles and now residing in Cheshire, Andrew Velzian says he scribbles a few stories in between working and sleeping.